Former president Banner's influence on Eagles will remain strong

PHILADELPHIA — — Now that Joe Banner is out as president of the Philadelphia Eagles, it's safe to say the franchise will handle its football operations a little differently.

But it's not nearly as safe to say this is all the result of head coach Andy Reid winning some type of power struggle within the organization. It's not as simple as all that, and probably not all that accurate.

Whatever the case, the team announced Thursday that Banner no longer is the team president, replaced by Don Smolenski. Banner instead will remain as a strategic adviser to owner Jeffrey Lurie, with general manager Howie Roseman taking over all the previous football responsibilities handled by Banner.

Since Roseman has assumed all those duties in this offseason, there have been a few subtle changes in front-office behavior that suggests things are being done more to Reid's liking.

There's complete roster harmony for the first time since their Super Bowl season of 2004. They are actually paying a good linebacker, DeMeco Ryans, as much as or more than he's worth maybe for the first time since before Reid became coach in 1999. And wide receiver DeSean Jackson is once again a happy Eagle, which might not be such a lock if Banner was still running the negotiations.

Still, don't expect an appreciable change in the way the Eagles will continue to do business.

Smolenski, promoted from chief operating officer, still will run all business operations outside of football.

Roseman still will provide rigid cap management, as learned from the master (Banner). He'll just do it with more of a convincing smile and a few carefully chosen exceptions to the team's roster-building guidelines. As anyone who's ever been around this organization is especially aware of, perception and reality often have little in common.

When Banner goes to the negotiating table, he drives a hard bargain that the Eagles ultimately win. When Roseman goes to the table, he drives and extracts the exact same bargain, only makes it seem like the player and his agent have pulled a fast one.

When Banner cuts the salary of a top player such as Jason Peters, he's a hardened villain in a black hat who needs to be publicly stoned to death right on Broad Street by maniacal fans. When Roseman does it, the player somehow feels thankful, as Peters reportedly is.

Roseman is like that hard-to-find dentist who can shoot you full of Novocain with a big needle you never feel going in. He's still got to do the same dirty work once he gets in there, but it's a much less uncomfortable experience overall.

Though Roseman, who was cornered by reporters in the auditorium a few minutes after Lurie and Reid had finished with all their denials of a power struggle, was careful not to fall into the trap of comparing his mostly positive relations with the players to Banner's sometimes negative ones, it's obvious what his personality means to the people inside and outside of the organization.

"Everyone wants to put their own spin on it," Roseman said, "... and I don't think that's any disrespect to the people that had the jobs before, but you want your personality to come through, and that's what they gave me the opportunity to do in these past few months. I obviously didn't know that this [planned change] was going on, but I want to do that. I want people to figure me out, to know me like Jeffrey has.

"Joe [was] president of the team, I'm the general manager of the team, so I think our responsibilities are different. He was obviously managing the stadium, the facilities, every single person in this organization. That's not my duties. Those are Don's duties. So I think it's hard to compare Joe and myself because we're not the same people and we're not doing the same things."

Except when it comes to football operations, which is all that matters to the public.

Banner took a lot of bullets for this team, but his football business model has helped the Eagles stay at or near the top of the NFC for more than a decade with no tangible down cycles. Since Reid became coach in 1999, they have missed the playoffs just four times and are 10-9 in the postseason under him.

A lot of that has to do with Banner, labeled by Lurie as "one of the best executives in sports."

Were there clashes with Reid? You bet. Did those clashes have anything to do with what happened on Thursday? That's not as clear as many seem to think.

Banner one day will be gone, but not soon forgotten, and his imprint on this organization will remain for years.

"What is important to me and what I take the most pride in is the organization that we have put together here," Banner said. "It's just phenomenal people who are hard working and passionate about the mission of the organization, caring about our fans, and being involved in the community. It's just really, really great people.

"I say often, and people in the organization will say that I talk all the time, the only thing that separates each team in the league is who works there."